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Micro-fragmentation


TonyInVa

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I have watched several videos by David Vaugh, regarding micro-fragmentation. His videos and speeches are about fragging very small pieces and placing close together. One example he talks about is 4 pieces placed down that fused and grew to a size that would have taken fifteen years. His work is for the ocean and coral restoration purposes. But I assume this could be used in the reef keeping hobby and probably is, but I couldn't find any articles. Has any one in in WAMAS tried it, if so please discuss. 

 

 

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That’s an interesting video. In general it makes sense - more smaller frags means more linear frag edge length for growth. It would be interesting if they have have any data on the frag edge length, and could normalize the data to understand if frags actually grow quicker when they are smaller, or if it is just more edges to grow, thus it fills in quicker (thinking mostly about encrusting-types that only grow outward on the edge)

 

for acros and stags, a well respected guy in MN where I came from swore by fragging only the tips of his corals. I think he actually did a “grow out”, where growth from tip frags (1/4” - 1/2”) grew faster and by a certain time point were actually bigger than the multi-inch frags he cut. He thought it had something to do with less damage to the coral so less to repair before getting back to growing, and sincethe tips were already on active growth, they were more deadly to encrust the base. 

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1 hour ago, bues0022 said:

That’s an interesting video. In general it makes sense - more smaller frags means more linear frag edge length for growth. It would be interesting if they have have any data on the frag edge length, and could normalize the data to understand if frags actually grow quicker when they are smaller, or if it is just more edges to grow, thus it fills in quicker (thinking mostly about encrusting-types that only grow outward on the edge)

 

for acros and stags, a well respected guy in MN where I came from swore by fragging only the tips of his corals. I think he actually did a “grow out”, where growth from tip frags (1/4” - 1/2”) grew faster and by a certain time point were actually bigger than the multi-inch frags he cut. He thought it had something to do with less damage to the coral so less to repair before getting back to growing, and sincethe tips were already on active growth, they were more deadly to encrust the base. 

I have read and seen discussions on kickstarting stubborn growing acros by cutting the tips. This search on stubborn corals is what lead me to Dr. David Vaughn's research. Most of my SPS  are growing like weeds, but several are barely growing at all. What's odd is the ones that don't grow are ones that would be considered rare or high end. At least that's the only way I know to categorize them.

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13 hours ago, TonyInVa said:

I have watched several videos by David Vaugh, regarding micro-fragmentation. His videos and speeches are about fragging very small pieces and placing close together. One example he talks about is 4 pieces placed down that fused and grew to a size that would have taken fifteen years. His work is for the ocean and coral restoration purposes. But I assume this could be used in the reef keeping hobby and probably is, but I couldn't find any articles. Has any one in in WAMAS tried it, if so please discuss.

 

 

I'm pretty sure that this is the same approach used by Joe Yaiullo at the Long Island Aquarium. When he was last out to speak with us, we saw a lot of pictures of him diving in the tanks, taking SPS tips and covering a large area with closely spaced tips. A few months later, the tips had encrusted, filling the space and the growth turned upward to create a large colony. We can do similarly. Another approach is to take branches and lay them out on their sides, closely spaced or take slices through branches - like those mints you can buy and glue those down. What you'll find happens is that, with the branches, some radial polyps will start to enlarge and become new axial polyps, starting new growth points - typically several while others will encrust. For the mint-like slices, the tissue will start to grow over the exposed skeleton and when it's fully encrusted, new axial polyp growth points will emerge. 

 

 

21 minutes ago, TonyInVa said:

I have read and seen discussions on kickstarting stubborn growing acros by cutting the tips. This search on stubborn corals is what lead me to Dr. David Vaughn's research. Most of my SPS  are growing like weeds, but several are barely growing at all. What's odd is the ones that don't grow are ones that would be considered rare or high end. At least that's the only way I know to categorize them.

I've seen similar behavior. I have a tabling acro that I took a few cuttings from to spread around the base in order to have it spread more. What I noticed was that, while the cuttings were somewhat slow to take hold, the stump that was left behind rapidly encrusted over the exposed skeleton and began to grow quickly and branch out. I see the same thing going on with an A. Yongei (slimer) coral. 

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It's interesting that you posted this, as I have been reading about it lately as well. 

 

I have a wild stag that I have been treating "bonsai" style, probably one of the fastest growers in my tank (which is why I keep cutting it,) next to any tenuis in my tank as a close second. My Walt Disney, however, that I've had for a year, has been doing a lot of encrusting, but not a lot of upwards growth. I recently went in and cut the tips, so we will see, I'm not taking notes, but more so visually checking to see how things progress afterwards. 

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Like he said I see a lot of Staghorn’s being grown out for placement on reef but not much elkhorn. This is a great idea for the elkhorn since it’s so large and slow growing and harder to work with. The Staghorns grow quick enough to where I don’t think microfrag is necessary. I bet the stags grow so quick they wouldn’t have the manpower to keep up with it. Tiny frags in my tank easily can be wiped out by a cyano or GHA outbreak and survivability is much greater in larger pieces. 

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